The good news: CicLAvia is expanding into South Los Angeles and deeper into Boyle Heights. More room for more people doing more things. Sounds like this thing is a hit. Since you guys are taking time off to do a little more planning, maybe we could get this thing up to Hollywood and the Valley? Pretty please?

CicLAvia has exceeded all expectations. When the streets were opened last October and again in April, Angelenos of all ages, shapes and sizes flooded in. CicLAvia connected the city in an entirely new way.

Due to overwhelming success, and the need to expand, CicLAvia and the city of Los Angeles have decided to focus our energies on expanding the CicLAvia route on October 9, 2011 and to forgo the announced July 10, 2011 date.

With such huge crowds in April, Los Angeles experienced its first bicycle traffic jams! CicLAvia and city staff have decided to expand the route to accommodate the overwhelming demand. The goal is to allow all participants to share the road. This includes pedestrians, skaters, wheelchair users, and, of course, all kinds of cyclists – from beginners to experienced. Due to lead-time for planning and permitting, it was too difficult to re-tool for July, and it would be difficult to focus both on October expansion and anticipation of even bigger crowds in July. So, July is off the table, and October is going to be bigger and better than ever.

introduce new features, areas, and signage that will better welcome more families and pedestrians

include more music and other activities along the route

revamp and expand the CicLAvia website

and a few more surprises still in the works!

And since a lot of us already have July 10th on our calendars, we figured we’d plan to do something fun that day… though not quite as big a production as CicLAvia. We’re planning to host a preview ride to introduce Los Angeles to the new October route spurs. The streets won’t be closed. It won’t be CicLAvia, but it will be a chance for Angelenos to gather and bike and explore parts of our city that we may not be as familiar with.

3 responses to July CicLAvia Canceled; October is a Go

I’ve commented at the CicLAvia blog as well, but I’ll post it here as well: anyone bitching about this sure as hell better be volunteering their own efforts and money to make sure that we can have CicLAvias more frequently. Don’t complain about something that people have put a lot of work into for the good of the city, and free of charge at that.

Organizers’ official position may be that July’s CicLAvia was canceled to better plan/expand, but I think they’re being polite. It’s money that makes streets close and the the wheels go ’round, and I think if the cash had been there, July would have a CicLAvia in it.

I agree with you both. If this is indeed about lack of funds, maybe that should be more of a focus in CicLAvia’s outreach. I think most people assume that this is something funded by the city – or that it doesn’t cost anything to begin with. But, if it is purely through donations, then maybe that message is getting lost. I’ll be honest, I don’t even know how much funding one event takes.

Also – and I’m sure the organizing committee is on it – this type of event seems perfectly suited for corporate sponsorships. Maybe companies could fund block by block, or an entire CicLAvia.